Monday, January 15, 2007

Might as Well Post Something for MLK's Sake

"The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority. If the church does not participate actively in the struggle for peace and for economic and racial justice, it will forfeit the loyalty of millions and cause men everywhere to say that it has atrophied its will. But if the church will free itself from the shackles of a deadening status quo, and, recovering its great historic mission, will speak and act fearlessly and insistently in terms of justice and peace, it will enkindle the imagination of mankind and fire the souls of men, imbuing them with a glowing and ardent love for truth, justice, and peace. Men far and near will know the church as a great fellowship of love that provides light and bread for lonely travellers at midnight."

I may not agree with Martin Luther King's religious views, but we share common ground in moral issues. When he was standing up for justice, equality, and all those things America is supposed to be a shining beacon of, one of the greatest problems he faced aside from overt racism was the sloth of the "moderate" churches. I think we're still facing the same problem. While we've still got serious issues to deal with, the fundies are maintaining the status quo by distracting us with the fictional "War on Christmas," while a real war is going on in Iraq, paranoia about reading harmless fantasy novels like Harry Potter while woos and fundies try to make people act on fantasy, and claim religion to be a great unifier while acting horrified at the prospect of a Congressman swearing on a different book, calling atheists "militant" for writing books, and endorsing a videogame that uniformly treats non-Christians as enemies.

So, if you consider yourself a "moderate" religious person, and want to take a stand against fundies of all sorts, it'd really raise my spirits (or at least endorphin levels) to hear it again. With the media's lack of coverage, sometimes I need a reminder that there are moderates out there who aren't idle, and that the church can at least take some sort of action against its members who go far astray.

Yep, Weapon, you've convinced me. When Bronze was born, an angel must have fluttered down from the sky, opened up his head, and crammed the Bible into his brain. It's the only reasonable explanation! I mean, people are just murduring, raping psychopaths in non-Christian countries, right?

2. MLK, like all human beings got his morals out of the principles of sympathy, reciprocation, and other traits that evolved as a result of practical application of Game Theory. He went one further and consciously applied those principles: Protecting minority rights is necessary for everyone's benefits. You won't find that sort of insight among the Religious Wrong, who are usually in favor of the nasty things they typically accuse atheists of.

Because we tend to be genetically biased towards closer relatives. People of other races are more distantly related than people of the same race.

And when did the principle of sympathy and reciprocation begin?

Consciously: Probably sometime back when memory evolved.

Unconscious equivalents evolved way back when organelles teamed up to form the first cells.

And what should be the object of one's sympathy, a pedafile, a murdererer?

Nice of you to start poisoning the well again. We're biased towards close relatives. Whether or not we should be biased towards them is still being debated in some ethical philosophy circles. Of course, science doesn't answer those questions: It's descriptive, not proscriptive.

So is sympathy still evolving?

Everything's still evolving.

And what gives you the authority to state that racism is wrong and that sympathy is right?

It seems to me that you have no moral standard.

Welcome to the realities of ethical philosophy: We're all in the same hole, except, unlike you, I don't pretend that a middleman (God & Divine Command Theory) solves the problem: What's the foundation for God's declarations? Where does God get the authority?